Work in Progress
by Allekha
Summary: The ghost of a mangaka demands that Nozaki finish his incomplete work.


A/N: Written for fluffybun for Trick or Treat 2015.

* * *

It wasn't the first time that Sakura had seen Nozaki show up to school looking absolutely exhausted, but it made her worry all the same. "Were you up late working on your manga?" she asked as they sat down to eat lunch together. The weather outside was cloudy but warm, and Sakura had been looking forward to eating with him on this bench all day.

"Yeah," Nozaki said absentmindedly, fumbling with his own lunch. "I was being pushed to work all night."

"I thought your deadline wasn't for a few more days? Ken-san must be worried about it, huh."

"It wasn't him," Nozaki said, finally managing to pull out his chopsticks and set them correctly in his fingers. "It was the ghost that just moved into my apartment."

Sakura almost dropped her own chopsticks. "What?"

Nozaki told her the story: a ghost had suddenly shown up in his apartment yesterday, the remnant of a recently-deceased mangaka. The ghost had demanded that Nozaki finish his manga – his last wish that he was determined to fulfill even from beyond the grave – and then made it impossible for Nozaki to work until he agreed to do so. Spilling pots, scattering papers, locking doors – it sounded horrible.

"What are you going to do?" Sakura asked. "Are you going to find a priest?" She briefly imagined a Shinto priest throwing salt around Nozaki's apartment, and how Nozaki could find a way to recreate the situation in his story.

"No, I'm going to finish his story."

"Really?"

"Well, he was down on his knees and begging me, and he wouldn't go away, so it was hard to say no."

"Is... is that so?" Sakura took a bite of rice and chewed, thinking. When she had swallowed, she asked, "But if you're helping him, will you be able to keep up with your own work?"

Nozaki stared at his meal like he wasn't seeing it. Sakura ducked her head to peer at him and make sure he hadn't fallen asleep. "I told him that, but he ruined some of my supplies," he finally mumbled.

"Oh." Sakura fidgeted. How did one find a priest? "Well, we can figure it out somehow and try our best until we can exorcise him, right? Since I'll help you, and Mikorin, and everyone!"

"Right!" Nozaki regained some of his vigor, granting her a smile paired with a determined look. Her heart fluttered; she grinned back.

~!~

After school, they approached the apartment with caution. Nozaki had by now told all of them about the ghost. Hori didn't seem to quite believe it, but Wakamatsu certainly had, and Mikorin kept trying to insist to Sakura that she stay behind them. She ducked past him as Nozaki opened the door to the apartment.

Hanging in the air above the table, a thin, colorless man swayed in a nonexistent breeze. At the sound of the door, he slowly opened his eyes, revealing that he had no pupils. _Who are they_ , he asked, without inflection, or even a voice.

They all – save Nozaki – crowded into the doorway to gawk. "They're my assistants," Nozaki explained as he took off his shoes. "They help me draw manga."

 _No. No, no no. No! I have chosen you and you alone to continue my work!_ The ghost's image straightened, maybe even grew a little in size.

Sakura forced down her nerves and stepped inside. She put a bright smile on her face. "But we always help Nozaki-kun, and with all of us together, we can help make sure he has a lot of time to work on your comic too."

 _I said no!_

One moment she was cringing away from the shout; the next she had been picked up into the air. For a heartbeat she hung there, wide-eyed, before she was flung backward and out of the apartment. She sailed down the hallway. When she landed it hurt, and she scrambled up on instinct. Distantly, a door slammed, but she couldn't see it over the rush of everyone shouting her name and people running over to her.

"I'm fine, I'm fine," she reassured them, but looking around, she didn't see Nozaki.

"The apartment's locked!" Wakamatsu called.

"What?!"

They could hear odd noises from the other side of the door, but Nozaki didn't reply to their cries, and even with all four of them, the door didn't budge.

~!~

Nozaki looked even more exhausted the next day. Sakura asked him several times if he was alright before believing that he was physically unharmed, at least. "If the ghost only wants you to work on his manga," she started, "there's another thing we could try. If we worked on pages at school or someplace, then we could at least help you with your own manga."

"Yeah," Nozaki said. He'd been staring at the vegetable in his chopsticks for several minutes now, as if he didn't remember what to do with it. It took quite a bit of prompting to get him to agree to bring everything they needed to school tomorrow.

~!~

The next day, Nozaki didn't come to school.

Sakura asked her parents about how to contact a priest. "It's, um, for a friend," she said, and was glad that they didn't ask too many questions.

It turned out that even priests had schedules and had to make appointments. The man on the other end of the line did reassure her that he could take care of the problem, at least.

~!~

The next day, Nozaki showed up at school, looking almost normal.

"Nozaki-kun!" Sakura ran up to him and skidded to a halt. "You're okay!"

"Yes, I am."

"What happened with the ghost?"

"I finished his manga."

"In a couple of days?"

"Well," Nozaki explained, "it was supposed to go on for another fifty chapters, but I realized that the plot didn't work, so I changed it and wrapped it up in two."

"...was that all it took?"

"When I woke up, the ghost wasn't there."

Sakura pursed her lips. "Are you sure? Maybe he just went away for a while."

Nozaki shook his head. "No, I showed him the completed pages. He asked about the new ending, and then I saw him pick it up and float out the window."

"Well... if you're sure." She smiled up at him. "He seemed really scary when he got mad. I'm happy you're not hurt. Oh, but is your deadline going to be okay?"

~!~

A few days later, they were having a normal, ghost-free drawing session when a priest showed up at the door.

"I, uh, guess I forgot to cancel the appointment," Sakura whispered to Nozaki as the priest wandered around the apartment, inspecting it. "Sorry."

Nozaki was watching the priest with sharp eyes. She knew that face. He was already reaching for some paper to sketch the scene out. Sakura wondered what kind of ghost Mamiko would end up haunted by, in Nozkai's imaginings. (Or would it be Suzuki?) Would it even be a real ghost, or some trick that had spooked the characters?

She leaned over a little and watched him draw.


End file.
